Knob Noster State Park
Encyclopedia
Knob Noster State Park is a 3934 acres (1,592 ha) Missouri state park in Johnson County
, Missouri
in the United States. The park, named for the nearby town of Knob Noster
, was constructed as the Montserrat National Recreational Demonstration Area
in 1946 as part of a nationwide effort by the National Park Service
to show how land that had been cleared for lumbering, mining
or farming could be restored and reclaimed by the public for recreational purposes. Knob Noster State Park is open for year-round recreation including camping
, hiking
, and fishing
.
belief stated that the hills were "raised up as monuments to slain warriors." Noster is a Latin
adjective
meaning our. Therefore Knob Noster translates as our hill.
The park was constructed during the Great Depression
by the Civilian Conservation Corps
and the Works Progress Administration
. The CCC and WPA were both part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt
's New Deal
a series of government funded programs designed to provide work for the unemployed workers of the Great Depression. The men of the CCC and WPA built roads, bridges, camping areas, picnic areas, and park service buildings. The park, originally known as Montserrat National Recreation Demonstration Area, was transferred to the state of Missouri in 1946 and named for Knob Noster
.
by Confederate soldier, Ephraim McDowell Anderson, as an area of "beautiful prairie
s, dotted with clumps of trees." The park lies in the Osage Plains
, a transition zone between prairie and forest. Tall wild grasses and wild flowers grow among scattered trees making habitat similar to a savanna
. In recent years the savanna has been overgrown with trees as the land is transitioning to a forest. There are efforts underway to restore some parts of the park to its original condition through controlled burning.
Clearfork Creek is a slow flowing meander
ing creek that passes through the park. It provides water for a corridor of trees along its banks. The trees growing along the banks and in other parts of the park include pawpaw
, various species of hickory
and oak
, hackberry and redbud
. The creek, prairie and woods provide a habitat for numerous birds and mammals including Great Blue Heron
s, Pileated Woodpecker
s, Wild Turkey
s, White-tailed deer
, fox
, Opossum, Raccoon
s, Screech Owls and Eastern Bluebird
s.
A 4 acres (1.6 ha) section of the park has been specially designated as a protected natural area. Pin Oak Slough Natural Area is in a former oxbow
slough of Clearfork Creek. The area is a wet-mesic forest and shrub swamp
. Water pools during spring in depressions making vernal pool
s. Trees growing in the Pin Oak Natural Area include Pin Oak, Swamp White Oak and Bur Oak as well as Silver Maple. The rare pale green orchid can also be found in the natural area.
s with sandstone
s and limestone
s of Mississippian to Pennsylvanian
age. Some of the rocks prevalent in the Osage Plains are Mississippian limestone, limestone shale, Ordovician
dolomite
, and coal
. There are also clay and shale within the Pennsylvanian bedrock.
, crappie
, bass
and bluegill
. Only human powered boats such as canoe
s and rowboats are permitted on the lakes. Several picnic areas are spread throughout the park on the shores of the various lakes. Three picnic pavilions are available. Five different types of camping areas are available at Knob Noster State Park. There are basic campsites with a fire ring and pad, electric campsites are similar to the basic, only with electric hook-ups, equestrian
campsites have facilities for horses and the special-use and group camping areas are provided.
Johnson County, Missouri
Johnson County is a county located in the U.S. state of Missouri. As of 2010, the population was 52,595. Its county seat is Warrensburg. The county was formed 13 December 1834 from Lafayette County and was named for Vice President Richard M...
, Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
in the United States. The park, named for the nearby town of Knob Noster
Knob Noster, Missouri
Knob Noster is a city in Johnson County, Missouri, United States. The population was 2,462 at the 2000 census. It is located adjacent to Whiteman Air Force Base. Knob Noster State Park is nearby.-History:...
, was constructed as the Montserrat National Recreational Demonstration Area
Recreational Demonstration Area
The Recreational Demonstration Area program was a National Park Service program during the 1930s and early 1940s that built forty-six public parks in twenty-four states on , chiefly near urban areas in the United States...
in 1946 as part of a nationwide effort by the National Park Service
National Park Service
The National Park Service is the U.S. federal agency that manages all national parks, many national monuments, and other conservation and historical properties with various title designations...
to show how land that had been cleared for lumbering, mining
Mining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...
or farming could be restored and reclaimed by the public for recreational purposes. Knob Noster State Park is open for year-round recreation including camping
Camping
Camping is an outdoor recreational activity. The participants leave urban areas, their home region, or civilization and enjoy nature while spending one or several nights outdoors, usually at a campsite. Camping may involve the use of a tent, caravan, motorhome, cabin, a primitive structure, or no...
, hiking
Hiking
Hiking is an outdoor activity which consists of walking in natural environments, often in mountainous or other scenic terrain. People often hike on hiking trails. It is such a popular activity that there are numerous hiking organizations worldwide. The health benefits of different types of hiking...
, and fishing
Fishing
Fishing is the activity of trying to catch wild fish. Fish are normally caught in the wild. Techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping....
.
History
Knob Noster State Park is named for the nearby town which itself is named for one of two small hills or "knobs" that rise up in an otherwise flat section of Missouri. A local IndianNative Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
belief stated that the hills were "raised up as monuments to slain warriors." Noster is a Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
adjective
Adjective
In grammar, an adjective is a 'describing' word; the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified....
meaning our. Therefore Knob Noster translates as our hill.
The park was constructed during the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
by the Civilian Conservation Corps
Civilian Conservation Corps
The Civilian Conservation Corps was a public work relief program that operated from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men from relief families, ages 18–25. A part of the New Deal of President Franklin D...
and the Works Progress Administration
Works Progress Administration
The Works Progress Administration was the largest and most ambitious New Deal agency, employing millions of unskilled workers to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads, and operated large arts, drama, media, and literacy projects...
. The CCC and WPA were both part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
's New Deal
New Deal
The New Deal was a series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They were passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were Roosevelt's responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call...
a series of government funded programs designed to provide work for the unemployed workers of the Great Depression. The men of the CCC and WPA built roads, bridges, camping areas, picnic areas, and park service buildings. The park, originally known as Montserrat National Recreation Demonstration Area, was transferred to the state of Missouri in 1946 and named for Knob Noster
Knob Noster, Missouri
Knob Noster is a city in Johnson County, Missouri, United States. The population was 2,462 at the 2000 census. It is located adjacent to Whiteman Air Force Base. Knob Noster State Park is nearby.-History:...
.
Ecology
The Knob Noster area was described in 1861 during the American Civil WarAmerican Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
by Confederate soldier, Ephraim McDowell Anderson, as an area of "beautiful prairie
Prairie
Prairies are considered part of the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome by ecologists, based on similar temperate climates, moderate rainfall, and grasses, herbs, and shrubs, rather than trees, as the dominant vegetation type...
s, dotted with clumps of trees." The park lies in the Osage Plains
Osage Plains
The Osage Plains are a physiographic section of the larger Central Lowland province, which in turn is part of the larger Interior Plains physiographic division. The area is sometimes called the Lower Plains, North Central Plains, and the Rolling Plains...
, a transition zone between prairie and forest. Tall wild grasses and wild flowers grow among scattered trees making habitat similar to a savanna
Savanna
A savanna, or savannah, is a grassland ecosystem characterized by the trees being sufficiently small or widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to support an unbroken herbaceous layer consisting primarily of C4 grasses.Some...
. In recent years the savanna has been overgrown with trees as the land is transitioning to a forest. There are efforts underway to restore some parts of the park to its original condition through controlled burning.
Clearfork Creek is a slow flowing meander
Meander
A meander in general is a bend in a sinuous watercourse. A meander is formed when the moving water in a stream erodes the outer banks and widens its valley. A stream of any volume may assume a meandering course, alternately eroding sediments from the outside of a bend and depositing them on the...
ing creek that passes through the park. It provides water for a corridor of trees along its banks. The trees growing along the banks and in other parts of the park include pawpaw
Asimina triloba
Asimina triloba, the pawpaw, paw paw, paw-paw, or common pawpaw, is a species of Asimina in the same plant family as the custard-apple, cherimoya, sweetsop, ylang-ylang and soursop...
, various species of hickory
Hickory
Trees in the genus Carya are commonly known as hickory, derived from the Powhatan language of Virginia. The genus includes 17–19 species of deciduous trees with pinnately compound leaves and big nuts...
and oak
Oak
An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus Quercus , of which about 600 species exist. "Oak" may also appear in the names of species in related genera, notably Lithocarpus...
, hackberry and redbud
Cercis
Cercis , is a genus of about 10 species in the subfamily Caesalpinioideae of the pea family Fabaceae, native to warm-temperate regions. It contains small deciduous trees or large shrubs commonly known as Redbuds...
. The creek, prairie and woods provide a habitat for numerous birds and mammals including Great Blue Heron
Great Blue Heron
The Great Blue Heron is a large wading bird in the heron family Ardeidae, common near the shores of open water and in wetlands over most of North and Central America as well as the West Indies and the Galápagos Islands. It is a rare vagrant to Europe, with records from Spain, the Azores and England...
s, Pileated Woodpecker
Pileated Woodpecker
The Pileated Woodpecker is a very large North American woodpecker, almost crow-sized, inhabiting deciduous forests in eastern North America, the Great Lakes, the boreal forests of Canada, and parts of the Pacific coast. It is also the largest woodpecker in America.Adults are long, and weigh...
s, Wild Turkey
Wild Turkey
The Wild Turkey is native to North America and is the heaviest member of the Galliformes. It is the same species as the domestic turkey, which derives from the South Mexican subspecies of wild turkey .Adult wild turkeys have long reddish-yellow to grayish-green...
s, White-tailed deer
White-tailed Deer
The white-tailed deer , also known as the Virginia deer or simply as the whitetail, is a medium-sized deer native to the United States , Canada, Mexico, Central America, and South America as far south as Peru...
, fox
Fox
Fox is a common name for many species of omnivorous mammals belonging to the Canidae family. Foxes are small to medium-sized canids , characterized by possessing a long narrow snout, and a bushy tail .Members of about 37 species are referred to as foxes, of which only 12 species actually belong to...
, Opossum, Raccoon
Raccoon
Procyon is a genus of nocturnal mammals, comprising three species commonly known as raccoons, in the family Procyonidae. The most familiar species, the common raccoon , is often known simply as "the" raccoon, as the two other raccoon species in the genus are native only to the tropics and are...
s, Screech Owls and Eastern Bluebird
Eastern Bluebird
The Eastern Bluebird, Sialia sialis, is a small thrush found in open woodlands, farmlands and orchards, and most recently can be spotted in suburban areas. It is the state bird of Missouri and New York....
s.
A 4 acres (1.6 ha) section of the park has been specially designated as a protected natural area. Pin Oak Slough Natural Area is in a former oxbow
Oxbow lake
An oxbow lake is a U-shaped body of water formed when a wide meander from the main stem of a river is cut off to create a lake. This landform is called an oxbow lake for the distinctive curved shape, named after part of a yoke for oxen. In Australia, an oxbow lake is called a billabong, derived...
slough of Clearfork Creek. The area is a wet-mesic forest and shrub swamp
Swamp
A swamp is a wetland with some flooding of large areas of land by shallow bodies of water. A swamp generally has a large number of hammocks, or dry-land protrusions, covered by aquatic vegetation, or vegetation that tolerates periodical inundation. The two main types of swamp are "true" or swamp...
. Water pools during spring in depressions making vernal pool
Vernal pool
Vernal pools, also called vernal ponds or ephemeral pools, are temporary pools of water. They are usually devoid of fish, and thus allow the safe development of natal amphibian and insect species...
s. Trees growing in the Pin Oak Natural Area include Pin Oak, Swamp White Oak and Bur Oak as well as Silver Maple. The rare pale green orchid can also be found in the natural area.
Geology
Knob Noster State Park and the Osage Plains are underlain by soft shaleShale
Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock composed of mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals and tiny fragments of other minerals, especially quartz and calcite. The ratio of clay to other minerals is variable. Shale is characterized by breaks along thin laminae or parallel layering...
s with sandstone
Sandstone
Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...
s and limestone
Limestone
Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....
s of Mississippian to Pennsylvanian
Pennsylvanian
The Pennsylvanian is, in the ICS geologic timescale, the younger of two subperiods of the Carboniferous Period. It lasted from roughly . As with most other geochronologic units, the rock beds that define the Pennsylvanian are well identified, but the exact date of the start and end are uncertain...
age. Some of the rocks prevalent in the Osage Plains are Mississippian limestone, limestone shale, Ordovician
Ordovician
The Ordovician is a geologic period and system, the second of six of the Paleozoic Era, and covers the time between 488.3±1.7 to 443.7±1.5 million years ago . It follows the Cambrian Period and is followed by the Silurian Period...
dolomite
Dolomite
Dolomite is a carbonate mineral composed of calcium magnesium carbonate CaMg2. The term is also used to describe the sedimentary carbonate rock dolostone....
, and coal
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
. There are also clay and shale within the Pennsylvanian bedrock.
Recreation
Knob Knoster State Park is open for year-round recreation. Two lakes, Buteo and Clearfork, and Clearfork Creek are open to fishing. The most common game fish are channel catfishChannel catfish
Channel catfish, Ictalurus punctatus, is North America's most numerous catfish species. It is the official fish of Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, and Tennessee, and is informally referred to as a "channel cat". In the United States they are the most fished catfish species with approximately 8...
, crappie
Crappie
Crappie is a genus of freshwater fish in the sunfish family of order Perciformes. The type species is P. annularis, the white crappie...
, bass
Bass (fish)
Bass is a name shared by many different species of popular gamefish. The term encompasses both freshwater and marine species. All belong to the large order Perciformes, or perch-like fishes, and in fact the word bass comes from Middle English bars, meaning "perch."-Types of basses:*The temperate...
and bluegill
Bluegill
The Bluegill is a species of freshwater fish sometimes referred to as bream, brim, or copper nose. It is a member of the sunfish family Centrarchidae of the order Perciformes.-Range and distribution:...
. Only human powered boats such as canoe
Canoe
A canoe or Canadian canoe is a small narrow boat, typically human-powered, though it may also be powered by sails or small electric or gas motors. Canoes are usually pointed at both bow and stern and are normally open on top, but can be decked over A canoe (North American English) or Canadian...
s and rowboats are permitted on the lakes. Several picnic areas are spread throughout the park on the shores of the various lakes. Three picnic pavilions are available. Five different types of camping areas are available at Knob Noster State Park. There are basic campsites with a fire ring and pad, electric campsites are similar to the basic, only with electric hook-ups, equestrian
Equestrianism
Equestrianism more often known as riding, horseback riding or horse riding refers to the skill of riding, driving, or vaulting with horses...
campsites have facilities for horses and the special-use and group camping areas are provided.